


Hallow

by Hedgi



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Eiling gets what he deserves, F/M, Ghosts, Mention of torture, halloween fic, technically revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8440603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgi/pseuds/Hedgi
Summary: Kidnapped by General Eiling, the day of the year was the last thing on Caitlin Snow's mind.But on All Hallow's Eve, the dead may walk a last time, and there is unfinished business.





	

She hadn’t realized it was Halloween.  Not that Halloween held too many memories. As a child, Caitlin’d put away the princess dresses by second grade: Mom insisted, she had to study. Private school, always this test or extra class or tutor. And then her father had gotten sick, and then there’d been college and work to put herself through college and rent because she wouldn’t sleep under her mother’s roof again until Hell froze over, and even then she was sure Hell would be more comfortable. Still, the last few years, She’d had fun. STAR Labs had had a party budget, and when they, well, downsized, they hadn’t needed much of one to have a good time. She’d loved the last few.  

She wondered what the others were doing right now, guessing at the date. Sometime in October. Maybe November by now. She just hoped they were safe, not here, like she’d been for—days? Weeks? Not months, not that long. Were they still looking? Of course. They had to be. Somewhere. Unless Eiling had caught them, too, but if he had, he’d have gloated about it. He’d have watched the blood drain from her face as he crushed any vain thoughts of rescue. Not for the only time, she wished she hadn’t asked Cisco to build her a dampener to block her powers. Eiling had welded the dampener-bracelet shut over her wrist, leaving her unable to use the power she knew she had to free herself. To stop him. She no longer held illusions about the name she had feared. Killer Frost. If she had the chance, she would take it. It would not be the first death Team Flash had caused, certainly not an unwarranted one.

“Now, Doctor Snow. Are you finally going to cooperate and answer our questions, or do you want to go hungry another day?” Eiling sounded bored.

“Not hungry.” Caitlin hissed. It was a bad lie.

“Still being Stubborn, then.  We’ve been quite lenient with you. You really should consider your situation.”

“Go—To—Hell.” She managed to spit the words, despite her dehydration.

Eiling started to laugh, but stopped part way through. The room did not echo. Vaguely Caitlin knew that was off. There should have been an echo.  She shivered, and frowned again. The dampener kept her warm, even in the thin, sweat through shirt she wore. It was older, worn out.  Her pajama pants were sadly much the same, but this was the first chill she’d felt.

“What are you doing?” Eiling snapped, looking at the dampener himself. Like her shackles, it was still whole.

“Nothing,” Caitlin jerked her head.

Eiling glared, moving forward. “Go to hell, you said? Doctor, I can make your life Hell on earth, so you’d best mind your mouth.“

“You’re the one who needs to worry.”

Eiling jolted. Caitlin’s eyes widened. The voice was just this side of familiar, but it didn’t belong to anyone Caitlin had seen or heard in the last days—weeks. It didn’t belong in these cramped halls, in this cell.  And moreover: Eiling was the only one there.

Until he wasn’t.

The figure was like moonlight on fog. Silvery, not quite transparent. There was no color to it, not exactly, but somehow, Caitlin could tell the strands of hair slipping across shoulders was meant to be reddish. She glowed, pinpricks and webs of silvery-purple light like constellations across not there skin, like the wisps of a supernova against closed eyelids.

Caitlin’s mind first supplied ”Impossible” and then corrected itself to “Real” and finally offered a name.

“You’re dead,” Eiling saw the figure too, reaching for a gun.

“Your bullets can’t hurt me again, Eiling,” Bette San Scouci spread her arms. “I’m dead. You can’t kill what’s already dead. Go ahead and try, if you like.”

He did try. The bullets did not even disrupt  the shifting sparks that formed the ghost.  Her fingers reached out and closed over his wrist. She did not seem to be shorter than he was, not now.  Caitlin could see the divots in his skin where Bette’s nails dug in.

“Wade Eiling,” she said simply. “Your time’s up. And nothing you could have created here, nothing you did to me, to anyone, can compare to what you’ve earned yourself.”

Eiling’s scream cut off as he crumpled. Bette looked at Caitlin, limp in her chains. “Doctor Snow. I’m not here alone tonight. I have to go, but …” she looked over her pale shoulder. “You’re in good hands. Your time is not yet.”

She vanished, light flickering and fading away. Caitlin sucked in a breath, trying not to look at the corpse of her captor on the floor. Good hands? Had Bette contacted Cisco, Barry, Joe, Iris? At this point she’d accept a rescue from Harry.

But the door did not open. Instead, another silvery hand reached through. There was no chill this time, no shiver up her spine, as this spirit entered, crossing the room in familiar strides. His hand felt almost warm against her cheek. Felt.

“Cait,” Ronnie whispered, his free hand touching the cuffs lightly. They shattered as if they were nothing more than spun sugar, and she stumbled slightly. Somehow, impossibly, he caught her.

“Ronnie? But—how—I— how did you know to—to come?“

““We can watch, some. You’re going to give me a heart attack. If I could have one, which, I can’t, but that’s not really the point, I guess. I’m always looking out for you, Cait.”

She shook her head, eyes glassy. “How are you here?”

 “We only get the one night. One night for the dead to walk. Did you really think I wouldn’t come back to say goodbye?”

She started to cry, dizzy and weak. His fingers touched the tears, warm and soft, not callused like they had been, and they seems to dissolve into the light.

“I’m dead, Cait. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

His warmth seemed to flood her, driving even the dregs of ice that her dampener could never purge away. It couldn’t last, she knew, but she gave a tiny sigh. He smiled down at her, the light and shadow that was his eyes so familiar.

“Let me get you home.”

Caitlin didn’t remember getting home, if they walked or—or flew, or if she simply blinked and found herself wrapped in a quilt, sitting on the little balcony of her apartment. It was late, or rather early. The sky was still dark, but the last ends of parties seemed to be dying down. Somewhere, she thought she could see streaking lightning, flickering. She looked at Ronnie, ghostly.

“You have to go,” she said, echoing the last thing—the last thing—

“Not yet,” he said, wavering like candle flame as he sat beside her. “I can stay till sunrise.”


End file.
